A few reflections on practicing centering prayer with PARKINSON’S
Getting comfortable
I have found that it's very important to allow myself to be as comfortable as possible during centering prayer sits out of kindness to my compromised nervous system. Often the symptoms are uncomfortable enough without forcing my body to do something it doesn't want to do. There are times I am able to sit in a chair. Other times I need to lie flat on the floor or on my bed even though this may make it harder not to fall asleep. I trust that because my intention is to consent to God’s transformational presence that God can use the prayer time no matter what my posture or level of awakeness.
The welcoming prayer
The welcoming prayer has become a really essential part of my life as I learn to allow myself to feel everything that is happening to me. It's easy to try to push away both the uncomfortable symptoms and the emotions about having the illness. The welcoming prayer provides a very helpful tool as I try not to resist my experience and learn accept myself as someone with a chronic illness.
I practice the welcoming prayer often in the midst of my daily life and also use it as a preparation for centering prayer to gather all myself. I find that if I do a quick body scan and the steps of the welcoming prayer before I begin centering prayer that I am more fully present to all that is happening. During the centering prayer I am gently letting go of thoughts, and I don't want to be aggressively pushing thoughts away, which I sometimes do if I try to get my symptoms out of the way in order to have a peaceful session. As always, dealing with thoughts with gentleness and transparency is one of the major challenges of centering prayer.
While I have a tendency to try to get past my symptoms such as tremor, dystonias, and stiffness during centering prayer so that I can have a peaceful and undisturbed practice period, I am slowly learning to accept and not resist that my bodily symptoms are part of my experience. To allow myself to feel everything that is happening to me, bodily sensations and emotions, is part of becoming whole. When I try to edit my symptoms out of my experience, I become less alive, less myself. What else am I pushing away when I try to push away my symptoms? I want to experience all of my life, even if it is challenging and unpleasant, because when I push things away I deaden myself.
Since the symptoms of my illness are so often present and a part of me wants to push past them and move on to something else, it’s sometimes hard to focus on or even find the symptoms when I do a body scan. It's challenging to be with my body and acknowledge everything in an honest way. This is part of loving and caring for myself. Once I have found and acknowledged my physical symptoms, then it becomes easier to focus on other bodily sensations and emotions that don't have to do with the illness. That being said, I find it's not helpful to focus too much on separating experience into illness and not illness. Everything that arises is part of me and my life.
I am making it sound like I have made a lot of “progress” in terms of accepting my illness and my symptoms, but of course there are moments when I weep with frustration, sadness, fear, rage, or a sense of injustice that I have this illness, and I try to be present with all of that. I've also found that it's important to practice the welcoming prayer at times when I am symptom-free. It's a kindness to my nervous system to notice and enjoy when I am feeling peaceful and well. To be fully alive is to be ready to be present to all my experience.
Learning to receive
For me, having Parkinson's has been a crash course in learning to receive love and care from God and from other people. I was raised to be very self reliant and learning to ask for help has been tremendously difficult and profoundly transformative. I am slowly learning that trying to always be the one who gives is a way of being controlling. When I let go of my need to be in control, I suddenly see in the world the love that is always available when I open my arms and am ready to receive it. Centering prayer has taught me a great deal about how to let go and let myself be part of God’s love in the world although at the same time I never fully understand how I am able to give myself to God’s mysterious movement. The surrender of centering prayer has been a wonderful preparation for my illness. While I don't like having this illness, I am also able to recognize it as a gift. By forcing me to accept that I am needy and vulnerable, the illness becomes my teacher.
Often I feel like my tremor is trying to shake loose the repression of a lifetime, shaking me out of stuckness and complacency. While this is happening, contemplative practice provides a beautiful place for me and my symptoms to be held in all their messiness and challenge.